Public Displays of Emotion
To emote or not to emote…
Should that even be a question? There are times that I am sorely tempted to, as the old writing aphorism goes, “open up a vein” on this blog and just emote all over the place. God knows, I have plenty to “emote” about. Recently divorced, an ex-step-daughter that seems to think I’m the anit-Christ, mountains of debt, little forward progress in my career recently. There’s lots there. I could go on at length regarding my feelings when packing my ex-step-daughter’s clothes which were left behind. (None of these look like they’d fit her anymore, but they were still hers.) But, I hesitate. Why? Because I know who’s reading this. At least, I suspect who’s reading this. More importantly, I don’t know for sure, but am fairly certain that my ex-wife and her boyfriend (fiance?) read my blog searching for… Well, for something. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what, but they seem determined to find it, whatever “it” is.
So, knowing my audience, or potential audience, or possible audience, how much do I give them? Do I show them a little bit of what I’m feeling in order to show the rest of my readers what my life is like? Do I lie, to throw the pests off the track? No, I can’t lie as a simple distraction. It would feel too ingenuine to do that here. Is it better to drift at a shallow, surface level, never touching the deeper stuff, in the name of “safety”? Not sure I know the answer to that one, either. Though, that may be why my posts have been a strange mix of the personal, obscure and technical lately. Maybe.
Of course, for a long time now I’ve been careful what I say about things and people at work. After all, I would hate to get fired for blogging. Still, there are many things I can, and do, talk about that are quite geekily professional on this blog. It is not, by any stretch of my imagination, a professional blog. It’s very personal, but I do spend a lot of time at work, so work factors into my personal blog. And, I am a geek by nature. For pity’s sake, my older brother has a PhD. in Physical Chemistry and interviewed with Microsoft, in the early days. Know why he turned them down? My brother the chemist, who rearranged molecular bonding sites for his doctoral thesis and wrote shareware for the TI home computer, felt that the guys at Microsoft were just “too geeky”! It’s genetic. Geeks and we both still don’t care for Microsoft. And, yes, I had a great-great-uncle who was in the circus. As a trick shot artist! Still… Strange runs in my family. So, geeky stuff gets into the blog.
Well, have I rambled enough to distract you from the initial premise? Should I talk about my feelings in this blog when someone might either use that against me or take great satisfaction in my pain? Don’t know. If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know.
Oh, and your Advice for today? “When agitated, pause.” Best advice I never asked for.
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"As human beings, we all want to be happy and free from misery. We have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility, are the sources of peace and happiness."
--Dalai Lama
